Calendars
General Mathematics behind the Calendar systems Principles You use this as much as you want. The idea is to provide something that is NOT the same as Earth, that gives a wide variety of options. You never use it ALL. So you have fun with it. Like an xmas tree, you decorate the calendar with the holidays and festivals that make sense to you. Detailing the length of the year The general length of the year is 420 days long. Like everything, this figure is not exact, being short by an amount that for more perfect precision requires a leap day being subtracted once every 13 years. To "lose your birthday" is traditionally a sign of bad luck, and persons who lose their birthday in that year are known as either greatly blessed, or cursed, depending on the culture and historical period. The factors of 420 are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 14, 15, 20, 21, 28, 30, 35, 42, 60, 70, 84, 105, 140, 210, 420 All this means is that you can divide 420 by any of those numbers. Meaning that religious festivals can happen along any of these periods and will fit evenly into the year, and there are many options for shorter periods of time, such as weeks of 6 or 10 days, etc. all depending on the culture. You could have a religion with festivals every 42 days, ten times a year. Or any other combination that you like For ease of thought you could go with 30 day months, meaning ''Traditionally there are 14 months in a year'' Traditional seasons In tropical areas, the length of the year is taken as 400 days, with a inter-year holiday period to make adjustments. Just like on Earth, the actual earth year is 365 days, but the circle has 360 degrees, so this world has 420 days in a year, with 400 days in a year in primitive tropical areas where there are no "seasons" beyond flood season and dry (like ancient Egypt). This leads to 400 "degrees" in a circle, and 100 "degrees" in a right angle. This can be found in many real scientific calculators where the option is there to measure angles in "gradians" (see wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradian, which is a sort of "metric degree" that never caught on in the USA The year typically starts with the first day of spring, although some cultures will choose other dates, such as the date of the founding of a city, a nation, etc. Some cultures have named months after important heroes and leaders. Seasons are scientifically 105 days long, although traditionally it is 100 days of spring, etc with a 5 day festival between seasons. This may or may not coordinate with the inter-year festival, depending on local culture. The Three Moons There are three moons, all of which contribute to various calendar cycles, but only the largest contributes to meaningful tides. They all show visible disks, and go through visible phases. Their periods are rough multiples of each other, which helps contribute to the stability of the lunar system. The slowing go in and out of synch with each other, and this is said to have astrological import. Several calendars have several different month systems at the same time, reflecting the interaction of the several moons. The Primary moon is the closest and largest moon. It has a period of approximately of 31 days. There would be roughly 13.5 months in a year The middle moon in size and distance has a period of 63 days The minor moon is the farthest and smallest moon. It has a period of 124 days. Months, Weeks, Days The primary system of months follows a month that is 30 days long, This does not match the period of the primary moon precisely, but is traditional because it makes for 14 months in a year with each being 30 days long. The months are often named numerically (First Month, Second Month, etc) or by Activity (Harvest month, Planting Month, Hunting Month etc), or by season event (Snow Month, Flower Month, Wolf Month, Windy Month, Cider Month, Falling Star Month, etc). Others will name a month for heroes or famous leaders. Often there can be several names for the same month. For example, "In the First Month, also known as Windy Month, on the 4th day of the first week, also known as Hump Day....." There are also Months, etc synchronized to the other Moons The Middle Moon has a period of about 63 days, and this allows for periods that are 3, 7, 9, and 21 days long, in addition to the regular 4 phases The Minor Moon has a period of 124 days, and this allows for periods that are 2, 4, 31, and 62 days long, in addition to the regular 4 phases. Note that it does NOT precisely match the cycle of the Primary Moon, so that the point in the sky where they line up slowly shifts through the sky, making a full circuit only in the course of several decades. There are many colorful names for other time periods, similar to weeks, of various lengths, and different periods will have different names for the days in the cycle, again ranging from 1st day 2nd Day, etc to other colorful sources (so you get things like Hump Day, Drink Day, Church Day, etc) All of these vary by Region, Religion, and Culture. Not all are used everywhere. The Rational Calendar This is a theoretical calendar system started in more scientific times with a starting date engineered to predate the earliest known historical culture on the planet, starting with a point when all three moons were precisely aligned with the main star (in a solar eclipse), in what could be called a triple eclipse with the Sun. It uses a 420 day year, and does not use leap years, so that there is always an absolute scale of measurement. It is used by scientists to coordinate data between other regional calendars. Because the moon orbits are at different angles, this is a very rare event, happening only once every 7,437 years. This calculated date of the last such event is marked as year One and Day One in the rational calendar, and all the other dates such as all weekly and other cycles calibrate on this date. It then rolls forward from then like clockwork, and all you have to do is count the days and do the math. Because there is no account for leap years, the First Month First Day of the rational year slowly gets earlier each year. It cycles through the complete set of season to the original taking 5475 years to line up correct once again. This is not calibrated with the triple eclipse cycle, because the length of the day and the length of the year are not coordinated with the cycles of the moons. Year One Day One in the Hollen calendar calibrates to Year 3,289 Day 217 in the Rational Calendar, The next such triple eclipse of all moons with the sun is calculated to take place in the year 4148 of the Hollen Calendar. There is no historical record of such an event, and little evidence, if any in legends. There are unusual cave drawings that might be related to this event, but noone can make sense of them. Regional Information Region 1 Region 2 Region 3 Region 4